Born: 28 January 1929, St Mary’s, Cowper Road, Rathmines, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 08 October 1946, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Died: 02 June 2019, Blackrock, Dublin City, County Dublin

Left Society of Jesus: 20 February 1948

Parents were John and Mary (Meagher). Father was an Accountant and deceased at the time of entry. Mother was a Director of McBirney’s Department Store, Aston Quay, Dublin.

2 Brothers and 2 Sisters.

Educated at Belvedere College SJ, Dublin.

Baptised at Church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar Road, Dublin, 01/02/1929
Confirmed at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Marlkborough Street, Dublin,, by Dr Wall of Dublin, 31/01/1940

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/john-donnelly-obituary-one-of-ireland-s-foremost-insolvency-experts-1.3925143#:~:text=Donnelly%2C%20one%20of%20Ireland's%20foremost,in%20a%20practice%20co%2Dfounded

Heroism, eclectic diversity of interests, deep spirituality and chartered accountancy are not usually found in each other’s company, but in the one-of-a-kind life of John Donnelly, who has died aged 90, they certainly were.

Donnelly, one of Ireland's foremost insolvency experts and the leading receiver of troubled companies from the late 1960s onwards, was, successively, a teenage soldier in the British army's D-Day landings on Sword beach on the Normandy coast, a Jesuit seminarian for two years, an articled clerk in a practice co-founded by his own father, the principal of that practice from his qualification in 1954 as a fellow (as it then was) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and then, finally, one of the founding partners of what has become, after many mergers, the Irish operation of the major firm Deloitte.

Business was in Donnelly’s blood. His father, Jack, was a chartered accountant with the famous Dublin firm Craig Gardner. He had left with John Gardner, a son of one of the founders of the practice, to form Gardner Donnelly, but died young when John was still a child, leaving his mother, May (nee Mehigan), to bring him and his five siblings up on her own. Fortunately, however, she was also in business, and prominently, as chairwoman of the legendary department store McBirney’s. The family continued to live in comfortable circumstances in Temple Gardens, Rathmines.

Educated at Belvedere College, he demonstrated early an independent streak which was also to last him to the end, by running away in his 16th year to join the British army in 1944. He found himself within a few months, having lied about his age, in France. He was shot in the neck by a sniper, recovered and returned to his unit.

Father’s practice Donnelly lost many friends as a young soldier, and this affected him very deeply. It was perhaps this experience that led him to spend two years in training for ordination as a Jesuit on his return to Dublin, and, later, perhaps influenced also a short-lived dalliance as a medical student. In time, he settled down in his late father’s practice, which he bought out two years before qualifying himself.

He developed a speciality as an insolvency practitioner widely regarded in the business world as second to none. As his former colleague in Deloitte, retired partner David Deasy, put it to The Irish Times this week: "During the late 1960s, and from then until [Donnelly's retirement in] the 1990s, he was the go-to person for banks for particularly challenging and difficult receiverships."

Among the most prominent of these were Ranks Ireland; Cork brewers James J Murphy's; Van Hool McArdle, motor body builders in Dundalk; Janelle, a large textile group in Finglas, Dublin, in the early 1980s; Dr Austin Darragh's Institute of Clinical Pharmacology in the late 1980s and early 1990s; and UMP Meats of Ballyhaunis in the same period.

Donnelly made a point of attempting to rescue jobs, if he could, from unpromising situations, and it gave him particular pleasure, for example, to be able to sell on Murphy’s to Heineken, a deal that has preserved jobs in Cork for the past generation. UMP Meats was eventually bought by Glanbia, and today Dawn Meats still operates the plant.

The work was sometimes dangerous. In the case of Ranks Ireland, a number of the firm’s workers staged a sit-in at the plant, and subversive elements, quite separately from the workers and without their consent, took advantage of this as a publicity stunt to threaten Donnelly and his family, resulting in an armed Garda presence having to be provided at the family home for years subsequently. His former colleague, Billy O’Riordan, told The Irish Times that when Donnelly had to make people redundant, “he always treated them with the utmost respect and consideration”.

To work for, Donnelly was a demanding taskmaster. David Carson, another colleague at Deloitte and still a partner with the practice, recalled this week that "John was a tough individual to work for, but fair. He stood up for you." But first you had to prove that you knew your stuff. "He very much challenged you. He'd test you and you very much had to pass that test." For scheduled meetings, colleagues needed to be prepared thoroughly. Carson remarking that "you needed to be very, very well prepared, you needed to know what the objective was; he didn't appreciate you not being well-briefed."

Eugene McCague, a solicitor formerly of Arthur Cox and Partners, who worked on many projects with Donnelly, said this week this directness extended to Donnelly’s dealings with lawyers. “He had a hatred of imprecise language. He was a stickler for precision . . . I learned a lot from him.”

Toughness in negotiations was another characteristic McCague recalled also when Donnelly handled the closing down of Dublin Port’s stevedoring subsidiary Dublin Cargo Handlers in 1992, “there were long, tough negotiations with the trade unions, but he did a deal with generous redundancy payments.”

Outside business, Donnelly had an extensive record as a volunteer with a range of charitable and not-for-profit causes, especially at the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin (where he chaired a finance committee, which raised £1.5 million) and Co-Operation North (now Co-Operation Ireland), the boards of both of which he chaired. He also served for 20 years as honorary consul of Finland in Ireland.

John Donnelly is survived by his widow, Aoibheann (nee MacEllin), his daughters Grace, Caoimhe and Deirdre, son JP, and also by sisters, Ethel and Philomena, and his brother, Gerard. He was predeceased by brothers Michael and Daniel

https://rip.ie/death-notice/john-donnelly-dublin-blackrock-374303

The death has occurred of

John DONNELLY
Blackrock, Dublin

(1929 – 2019), former Senior Partner of Deloitte in Dublin, peacefully on the morning of June 2nd 2019; beloved husband of Aoibheann (nee MacEllin) for 57 years and loving father to Grace, Caoimhe, Deirdre and JP. Sadly missed by his sons-in-law Fintan O’Gorman, Andrew Lowe and Aillil O’Reilly, his brother Gerard and brother-in-law Peter Dunn. Predeceased by his sisters Ethel and Phil, and brothers Daniel and Michael. Cherished by his fourteen grandchildren Jack, Katie and Harry Donnelly; Christopher, Eleanor, and Louisa O’Gorman; Jonathan, Alec, Cormac and Jake Lowe; Ailbhe, Honor, Lauren and James O’Reilly.

Date Published:
Tuesday 4th June 2019

Date of Death:
Sunday 2nd June 2019

https://notices.irishtimes.com/death/donnelly-john/55337869

DONNELLY, John: Death

DONNELLY, John (Blackrock, Dublin, 1929 – 2019), former Senior Partner of Deloitte in Dublin, peacefully on the morning of June 2, 2019; beloved husband of Aoibheann (nee MacEllin) for 57 years and loving father to Grace, Caoimhe, Deirdre and JP. Sadly missed by his sons-in-law Fintan O’Gorman, Andrew Lowe and Aillil O’Reilly, his brother Gerard and brother-in-law Peter Dunn. Pre-deceased by his sisters Ethel and Phil, and brothers Daniel and Michael. Cherished by his fourteen grandchildren Jack, Katie and Harry Donnelly; Christopher, Eleanor, and Louisa O’Gorman; Jonathan, Alec, Cormac and Jake Lowe; Ailbhe, Honor, Lauren and James O’Reilly. Reposing at home tomorrow (Thursday) from 5.30pm to 7.30pm. Funeral Mass on Friday (June 7) at 10.00 am in Church of the Assumption, Booterstown Avenue, followed by burial in Shanganagh Cemetery. Family flowers only please.

Born: 16 March 1909, Glenview House, Gardiner’s Hill, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 01 September 1926, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1940, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1943, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 20 September 1985, Cherryfield Lodge, Milltown Park, Dublin

Part of the St Ignatius, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin community at the time of death

Youngest brother of Thomas - RIP 1964 and Cyril - RIP 1952

Father was a master painter and with his mother lived at Glenview House, Gardiner’s Hill, Cork, and then at Thorndene Cross, Douglas Road, Cork. Father died in 1921. Mother then moved to Cowper Road, Rathmines, Dublin.

Youngest of six sons with one sister.

Early education at a Convent school in Cork, he then went for six years to CBC Cork (1918-1924). In 1924 he went to Clongowes Wood College SJ

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 60th Year No 4 1985

Obituary

Fr Gerard Patrick Perrott (1909-1926-1985)

Born on 16th March 1909. Ist Septem ber 1926: entered SJ. 1926-28 Tullabeg, noviciate. 1928-31 Rathfarnham, juniorate. 1931-34 Tullabeg, philosophy. 1934-37 Galway, regency. 1937-41 Milltown, theology. 1941-42 Rathfarnham, tertianship
1942-53 Clongowes, teaching. 1953-56 Galway, minister, prefect of church. 1956-66 Mungret, rector. 1968-85 Leeson street: 1968-82 bursar of S H Messenger; 1975-85 editorial assistant, SHM. 1985 Cherryfield. Died on 20th September 1985.

These are but a few personal reflections on the life of Fr Gerry Perrott, whose death we mourned this last September.
I knew him since September 1924, 61 years ago, when he and I were at school together. During the intervening time he was an unfailing friend; always a friendly happy person.
One outstanding feature of Gerry was his fidelity to his work, no matter what it was.
As a teacher, and indeed as minister and rector, he was a very good disciplinarian, yet showed himself nonetheless kindly and approachable to all.
What I always enjoyed in Fr Gerry was his good humour. No matter what the time of day - and he was a man of very set routine - he always had a moment to spare.
In the years after ordination, when he and I lived under one roof, he worked hard even in summer, when he would set off and give three or even four retreats to Sisters in large communities or small, Similarly at Christmastime he would give one triduum if not two.
His versatility was often the subject of my conversation with him. He laughingly glossed it over and put it down to a family gift.
No matter what problem cropped up under his administration, I never saw him in a state of real worry over anything.
The past pupils of Mungret were very devoted to him and he to them. I would venture to say that the new life of their Union dated from Gerry's time as rector there.
Thank God and Saint Ignatius for such a Jesuit. May he now once again enjoy the company of his two Jesuit brothers, Frs Tom and Cyril, who Tom 1964). God rest his happy soul.

◆ The Clongownian, 1985

Obituary

Father Gerard Perrott SJ

Gerard Perrott was one of seven who entered the Society of Jesus in Tullabeg from Clongowes in 1926. He is the fourth to finish his course; the remaining three are soldiering on. He was also the third member of his family to become a Jesuit. His brother Tom entered in 1916 and his brother Cyril in 1922. Both of them died before him; Cyril as a young priest in St Ignatius, Galway; Thomas at a good age in Australia where he spent most of his life as a priest. He was founder of the Jesuit school in Perth. Fr Gerard with his kindly nature felt their loss very deeply, Indeed, he suffered an unusual number of bereavements in his family.

He had lost his father, a victim of an ambush during the Black and Tan war and as a novice he lost his brother Paul, killed in a motor-cycle accident. Much later he was to lose his much loved sister, Mother St Thomas of Hereford of the Society of Mary Reparatrix.

If the novice Gerry from the pleasant waters of the River Lee' found the then bare and desolate aspect of his surroundings anyway depressing, he never showed it. He went through the noviceship in the resolute and regulated way that was standard, but always there was about him a gentle geniality and friendliness which won him many friends. It made him a 'good companion' all through the hard years of studies, and was a very pleasing quality later on when he was Rector in Mungret College and in St Ignatius, Galway. His ready friendliness and his deep genial laugh were a pleasure to his community and to the many who enjoyed his pleasant company,

In his person he was very neat, and he had a neat and effective way of doing things which probably came from the business of his family who were house painters and decorators in Cork.

In studies he might, perhaps, be described as an easy-going all-rounder who could get what mastery of his subjects he required without great difficulty or stress. He was very good at Irish, but did not become highly specialised in any subject, though, doubtless, he could have had he been required to. He could deal easily and competently with any task he was given.

As Rector he trusted his subjects and had a good practical commonsense wisdom. He tended to let things sort themselves out rather than impose a decision - part, perhaps, of his wisdom!
In later years he was Secretary to the Irish Messenger Office where he dealt with a large daily correspondence efficiently and with a warm personal touch that was greatly appreciated by the recipients. He was in failing health for some years before he died but carried on with quiet determination until shortly before the final phase of his illness.

His many Jesuit friends will miss his genial presence and will cherish his memory. To his nephews and nieces and other relatives, we offer our sincere sympathy.

AE